An Affliction
The urges to keep quiet have dissipated as I have let this place and my utter need to escape it; compromise a great deal of me. The hours, days, and months run together. The people lurk, the past fades, and here I sit. The painful weight of my reality, is real
I've always felt, known, that I'm different. I am an affliction. Yet, you can't help but love me, because you don’t see me. I look at you, and I adjust. I become the person you seek, a fantasy. In truth, I am deception. I see myself in everyone around me: the lies, the beliefs, the images, the person you think you are. But there is no self. No one is special. No one is unique. Each and every one of us are products of life. We are minute reactions; living responses to life. I look at my life and I look at yours. I see the person you think you are, the person you seek, and I fulfill your expectations. I am a mirror.
Some would argue I am a narcissistic sociopath, others would say multi personality, bipolar, and some say I am a pathological liar. I sum it up to approximately fucked up. But I want to shine some light on wrongs I don’t know I’ll ever be able to right. I’ve lied, manipulated and played my way through life. I’m afraid I’ve hurt the only man who was ever capable of loving the monster in me. I ripped my closest friend’s heart out countless times in recent months, and my own in the process.
All of my life I have tried to stop, only to end up getting worse as I have come to the consensus my nature may never change. It will evolve. With that said I believe I owe it to him and the general knowledge to explain the reality behind sorry people such as myself.
As much as I love, I’m afraid I will always hurt those around me. And no I have never been clinically diagnosed as anything, this is simply something I’m writing in the heat of a mood swing. None of my life minutely justifies any of what I’ve done, but I’d like to stress how the little things in life can come to change life as we know it.
I was born with multiple diseases that cause various effects. As a young kid I was covered from head to toe in bruises. Time and time again strangers attempted to take me from my family. Grabbed my arms at times -trying to “save me”. A few even called detectives. But my parents never beat me, I was born broken. Flawed. The little girl I saw in the mirror; she wouldn’t say a word. As I reached the age of seven, unaware my own underlying nature, I turned to secrecy after my grandfather bad form touched me over the course of 3 years up until his death. From there, the compulsion to take care of myself, trust few, and resort to secrecy only festered. I never told anyone, nor did I want to. Hell, I even cried at his funeral.
My parents were what you’d call image-oriented folks, scolding me for the purple and green that marked me. Too ashamed to be me, I lacked empathy from an early age, putting all of my energy on the surface of life. A shallow life. Leading into my teen years I was like any other kid –a shitty liar. At some point we’ve all watched movies or media and wondered what it’d be like to find such ease in lying. It’s ironic really. I remember the motivational posters posted all over school, “You can be whoever you want to be” or “Persevere”. I never stopped wanting to deceive. I admired the mysterious vibes of deception, and found comfort as lying developed into an art form. I thought it made me different, unique. Deception fueled my self-confidence and ego from deep within.
Later when a boat accident came close to killing me, the aftershocks continued to up until the age of 18. I subconsciously coped for five years on shallow mind, never tapping into my actual or perceived emotion. For a crippled, lonely, friendless kid; I was the happiest kid you’d ever meet. But beneath it, I couldn’t be sadder.
Two years of self-imposed isolation, depression, obsession, falsity, self-harm, and separation followed. I’d become the liar I’d once imagined. Lying my way through anything came at ease. Resourceful and imaginative thought processes changed how I responded to challenges. The roles reversed themselves and telling the truth, became a daily feat. I hesitated to tell the truth about any and everything just as you would hesitate to lie.
People often believe people like me, can’t discern reality from our lies. However it’s just the opposite. Lies may become our nature, but we have clarity. The reality is those around us eventually believe only what they can make sense of; but nothing I do ever makes sense. Purpose becomes a false reality. The lies drape across the spectrum, and as pointless as they seem to you, they are habit to me. Everyone around me perceives the truths as lies, making the liar, the one beholder of reality. It’s those around me that inherit the debt of my lies. That's where the guilt really lies.
Eventually this problem led to behavioral and psychological problems I still deal with today. When anger, serious topics, emotions, (anything) is directed to me -I respond in laughter. Anxiety filling me as I don’t know how to respond. How to cope with anything in general is profoundly difficult. These unperceivable coping mechanisms become impossible to hide –hence social isolation. I got through high school consuming four fingers of vodka everyday as I couldn’t handle being around people, but more importantly: I couldn’t handle hiding my social anxiety.
When I finished school and went to college I didn’t date. I withdrew from all social contexts just as I had before, and made it virtually impossible for anyone to know anything about me, beyond small talk and the books and movies I love.
I started playing online games for the hell of it, telling those who messeged me to fuck off before they made the mistake of getting to know me. That is, until one man took my haste as an invitation to talk to me; befriend me. He fell in love with my dry bittersweet personality, and I fell in love with his pure personality. He has the blue eyes that find joy, the ears that know good music and the heart that forgives. For the first time in my life, I rid my ugly personality. For however short a time, he made me good. Honestly though, I’m not really sure what he fell in love with. All I know is I fell hard for him. I thought he was someone I wouldn’t hurt. Except I did.
Hurting him, hurt me, it ripped me apart. And YES I know I deserved it, for making him feel inadequate. When it was really me the entire time. It was all my fault. I tuned into him. I loved him, but I used his big beautiful heart against him. I knew no other way. The fear of love, of hurting those I care for, had changed me. I guess what I’m trying to say, is no matter how cold you are or think you are, how emotionless or unaffected you feel, there’s some part of you that is worth living for. There’s a little life in all of us regaurdless of what you feel. You are human. Were all living to remember something. For me… that was him. And if you find you’ve lost for love. Love yourself for them -if anything.
As for me, I lost him. But today, I look up at the sky and smile, because he was my light. And for someone 4.2 thousand miles away, I’ve never felt closer. Soulmates are a bittersweet thing. But somewhere deep down, we all have the capacity to love… To evoke humanity. Just look to the sky, you'll remember what's keeping you alive.
And smile. Just fcking smile...
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